New Release: The Legend of Lyon Redmond (Pennyroyal Green #11) by Julie Anne Long

Bound by centuries of bad blood,
England’s two most powerful families maintain a veneer of
civility...until the heir to the staggering Redmond fortune disappears,
reviving rumors of an ancient curse: a Redmond and an Eversea are
destined to fall disastrously in love once per generation.

An enduring legend

Rumor has it she broke Lyon Redmond’s heart. But while many a man has
since wooed the dazzling Olivia Eversea, none has ever won her—which is
why jaws drop when she suddenly accepts a viscount’s proposal. Now
London waits with bated breath for the wedding of a decade…and wagers
on the return of an heir.

An eternal love

It was instant and irresistible, forbidden...and unforgettable. And
Lyon—now a driven, dangerous, infinitely devastating man—decides it’s
time for a reckoning. As the day of her wedding races toward them, Lyon
and Olivia will decide whether their love is a curse destined to tear
their families part...or the stuff of which legends are made.

Excerpt

The first week of February …

She’s getting married on the second
Saturday in May.
Nine words scrawled across a sheet of
foolscap. He stared at them until they blurred into a single gray mass.
When he lifted his head, his ears were
ringing and he was as dazed as if he’d literally been dragged backward
through time.
For Lyon Redmond, there had always only
ever been one “she.”
He was momentarily disoriented to find
himself on the deck of a ship docked in Plymouth, not on the Sussex
downs, waiting by the double elm tree. The one with the “O” carved into
it.
A dozen pairs of eyes were on him,
waiting patiently for the command that always came.
His crew was a carefully curated,
casually lethal lot of men and one woman, the versatile Miss Delphinia
Digby-Thorne, she of the many languages and surprisingly useful acting
talents—she had once spilled ale all over his sister, Violet.
They had nothing in common apart from
mysterious pedigrees, ambiguous morals, and unswerving loyalty. To him.
Unlike, alas, Olivia Eversea.
But then, every last one of them had
prospered the moment they’d aligned their fortunes with him. He was
cynical enough to know it was all of a piece, the loyalty and the
prosperity. He didn’t care.
The bearer of this news, a man dressed
in footman’s livery, took Lyon’s silence as dismissal and turned rather
too optimistically to leave.
“Hold,” Lyon said sharply.
The swords of his men came up swiftly to
bar the man’s way.
“I’m unarmed,” the footman said
hurriedly, holding up his hands. “And alone. You have my word.”
Lyon smiled a smile that would have had
many a man wetting his smallclothes. It bore more resemblance to the
curve of a cutlass. “While I’m certain your word is indeed priceless,
you’ve naught to fear. I just cleaned my sword, so there will be no
running through of anyone for at least another few hours.”
This elicited chuckles from his crew.
The footman gave a wobbly, uncertain
smile.
Lyon knew a surge of impatience, which
he recognized as shame. He was not in the habit of intimidating clearly
unarmed and outnumbered men for the sport of it.
Then again, given how history often
treated bearers of bad news, the man was probably fortunate he still
drew breath.
“Your name, please.”
“Ramsey, sir.”
“You’re in no danger as long as I
believe you are answering my questions truthfully, Ramsey.”
“Of course, sir.”
But judging from how the footman
blanched, he didn’t miss the implicit threat.
“Who sent you, Ramsey?”
“Begging your pardon, but Lord Lavay
said you would know when you read the message. I am in his employ. I’m
a footman, sir.” He squared his shoulders and touched the silver braid
on his coat, as if for luck. “And I won the coin toss.”
“I was a reward, then, was I, Ramsey?”
Lyon drawled, to another scatter of chuckles. “Please describe Lord
Lavay to me.”
Ramsey furrowed his brow. “Well … he’s a
big gentleman. Perhaps as tall as you, sir. French. He often waves his
hands when he talks, like so.” He began to demonstrate with a sweep of
his own hands, then clearly thought better of it when all the swords
aimed at him twitched a warning. “Took quite an injury in a fight not
too long ago, but he’s fit now.”
Lyon studied the footman unblinkingly,
searching for the faintest hint of perfidy in the flicker of an eyelash
or the tensing of a muscle.
He knew all about that fight and that
injury. Lyon and his crew had found Lavay bleeding to death on the
Horsleydown Stairs in London.
Lyon was in fact the reason Lord Lavay
still walked the earth.

Julie Anne Long originally set out to be a rock
star when she grew up, and she has the guitars and the questionable
wardrobe stuffed in the back of her closet t prove it. When playing to
indifferent crowds at midnight in dank clubs lost its, ahem, charm, she
realized she could incorporate all of the best things about being in a
band—namely, drama, passion and men with unruly hair—into novels, while
at the same time indulging her love of history and research. So she
made the move from guitar to keyboard (the computer variety) and
embarked on a considerably more civilized, if not much more peaceful,
career as a novelist.

Julie lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with a fat orange cat.
(Little known fact: they issue you a cat the minute you become a
romance novelist.)

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About Me

I love all things beauty and makeup, reading and books, and also have a keen interest in cooking and food. Combined with a husband who loves wine, we write a number of blogs that align with our interests. I have two blogs: Deanna's World which focuses on all things books and beauty, and Daz In The Kitchen which is my cooking and food blog. I hope you visit and stay around.

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